Owens, Roth on Employee Discrimination

Reps Owens and Roth are sponsors of AB 30. According to the LRB:

This bill specifies that it is not employment discrimination because of conviction record for an educational agency to refuse to employ or to terminate from employment an individual who has been convicted of a felony and who has not been pardoned for that felony, whether or not the circumstances of the felony substantially relate to the circumstances of the particular job.

On May 16, the assembly passed AB 30 with all four Winnebago Assembly Reps voting in favor.

This bill joins a list of recent proposals from the Assembly that seek to weaken the protections of ex-felons. While is some cases the results of this bill may be reasonably effective, note that these employers are already legally able to deny employment if the crime is at all related to the employment position.

The issue with the continual assault on common societal protections for ex-felons is that we create an ever-increasingly difficult atmosphere for an ex-felon to succeed in. To the extreme, we create a class of individuals who are long-term reliant on taxpayer-funded social welfare programs and who are more likely to re-offend. Of greater significance, we suggest that our corrections system is entirely inadequate of addressing the needed protections of society while assisting their service population in becoming safe and productive members of society.

Of course it is always unfavorable to oppose legislation that negatively impacts an un-liked population. In addition, it is unlikely that AB30 by itself would cause negative effects in many cases.

UW Oshkosh instructor, author, and convict criminology expert Stephen Richards has impressive credentials that likely exceed most of those in the state Assembly (See Here). He also is an ex-con who spent 4 years in prison. Yet he is doing some of the most impressive and innovative work in Wisconsin (Listen to his interview with UW Oshkosh instructor Tony Palmeri). While we want to ensure that our society is safe and protected, we also want to make sure that we strive to harness the positive potential of everyone. We want to ensure that an ex-felon who is committed to following the law, who works hard, and who positively contributes to society will be welcomed and supported. We also want to make sure that when our lawmakers are discussing emotionally and politically driven topics as with AB30, they are consulting with knowledgeable people like Steven Richards.